Read in data

Data for median income, spending & collections from Eversource, UI in 2019, 2020 and 2021 filed under C&LM.

Data for demographics:

  • Energy burden from EPA LEAD tool

  • Justice40 disadvantaged communities from Climate and economic Justice Screening Tool

  • Racial diversity from US Census Bureau 2020 Decennial Census

There are some problems with census tract numbers in the utility data so some demographic data does not collate properly.

Tables

Distressed tracts

Overall trend toward closing gaps

  • Distressed tracts: median income <60% state median income

  • Small load: <100 kWh

## # A tibble: 6 × 5
##   collections disbursements Utility  Year equitable
##         <dbl>         <dbl> <chr>   <dbl> <chr>    
## 1      24.9         19.9    UI       2019 NO       
## 2       0.341        0.0638 ES       2019 NO       
## 3      24.1         15.3    UI       2020 NO       
## 4       0.292        0.326  ES       2020 YES      
## 5      24.5         22.9    UI       2021 NO       
## 6       5.78        12.6    ES       2021 YES

## Adding missing grouping variables: `Size`, `Cat`
## Adding missing grouping variables: `Size`, `Cat`
## # A tibble: 24 × 7
##    Size  Cat         collections disbursements Utility  Year equitable
##    <chr> <chr>             <dbl>         <dbl> <chr>   <dbl> <chr>    
##  1 SMALL RESIDENTIAL   17.7             10.3   UI       2019 NO       
##  2 SMALL C&I           26.9             30.0   UI       2019 YES      
##  3 LARGE RESIDENTIAL   65.3              0     UI       2019 NO       
##  4 LARGE C&I           31.0             29.5   UI       2019 NO       
##  5 SMALL RESIDENTIAL    0.731            0.141 ES       2019 NO       
##  6 SMALL C&I            0.000199         0     ES       2019 NO       
##  7 LARGE RESIDENTIAL    0              NaN     ES       2019 <NA>     
##  8 LARGE C&I            0.000225         0     ES       2019 NO       
##  9 SMALL RESIDENTIAL   17.6              8.22  UI       2020 NO       
## 10 SMALL C&I           26.4             22.9   UI       2020 NO       
## # … with 14 more rows
## # ℹ Use `print(n = ...)` to see more rows
## Warning: Removed 3 rows containing missing values (geom_point).

HES and HES-IE

It makes sense that distribution of HES-IE funds would be greater to distressed census tracts, but overall funds are not equitably distributed under HES program. Moderate distress appears to participate in HES-IE.

  • HES-IE: Home Energy Solutions, income-eligible

  • Moderately distressed tracts: median income 60-80% state median income

## # A tibble: 6 × 5
##   collections disbursements Utility  Year equitable
##         <dbl>         <dbl> <chr>   <dbl> <chr>    
## 1      17.7         13.5    UI       2019 NO       
## 2       0.730        0.0201 ES       2019 NO       
## 3      18.0         11.8    UI       2020 NO       
## 4       0.588        0      ES       2020 NO       
## 5      18.5         17.8    UI       2021 NO       
## 6       3.72        20.1    ES       2021 YES

## Adding missing grouping variables: `Cat`
## Adding missing grouping variables: `Cat`
## # A tibble: 12 × 6
##    Cat    collections disbursements Utility  Year equitable
##    <chr>        <dbl>         <dbl> <chr>   <dbl> <chr>    
##  1 HES         17.7          3.26   UI       2019 NO       
##  2 HES_IE      17.7         23.9    UI       2019 YES      
##  3 HES          0.730        0.0462 ES       2019 NO       
##  4 HES_IE       0.730        0      ES       2019 NO       
##  5 HES         18.0          3.19   UI       2020 NO       
##  6 HES_IE      18.0         34.0    UI       2020 YES      
##  7 HES          0.588        0      ES       2020 NO       
##  8 HES_IE       0.588        0      ES       2020 NO       
##  9 HES         18.5          5.06   UI       2021 NO       
## 10 HES_IE      18.5         35.2    UI       2021 YES      
## 11 HES          3.72         1.24   ES       2021 NO       
## 12 HES_IE       3.72        51.2    ES       2021 YES

## Adding missing grouping variables: `Cat`
## Adding missing grouping variables: `Cat`
## # A tibble: 12 × 6
##    Cat    collections disbursements Utility  Year equitable
##    <chr>        <dbl>         <dbl> <chr>   <dbl> <chr>    
##  1 HES          17.3           3.22 UI       2019 NO       
##  2 HES_IE       17.3          21.4  UI       2019 YES      
##  3 HES           6.96          4.26 ES       2019 NO       
##  4 HES_IE        6.96         11.9  ES       2019 YES      
##  5 HES          16.5           4.51 UI       2020 NO       
##  6 HES_IE       16.5          22.2  UI       2020 YES      
##  7 HES           6.84          2.07 ES       2020 NO       
##  8 HES_IE        6.84          9.11 ES       2020 YES      
##  9 HES          18.1           6.33 UI       2021 NO       
## 10 HES_IE       18.1          33.9  UI       2021 YES      
## 11 HES           6.26          1.66 ES       2021 NO       
## 12 HES_IE        6.26         51.9  ES       2021 YES

Justice40 disadvantaged

Justice40 requires that 40% of funds flow to disadvantaged communities, which make up approximately 29% of the country. This means that these communities should receive 1.3x the average proportional investment.

  • Disadvantaged: Communities that are marginalized, underserved, and overburdened by pollution. Burden thresholds include climate change, energy, health, housing, legacy pollution, transportation, water and wastewater, and workforce development.

  • Black lines in the chart show targets based on 40% of budget and 1.3x proportional investment.

## # A tibble: 6 × 5
##   collections disbursements Utility  Year equitable
##         <dbl>         <dbl> <chr>   <dbl> <chr>    
## 1       27.5           17.6 UI       2019 NO       
## 2       10.4           11.7 ES       2019 YES      
## 3       26.8           15.6 UI       2020 NO       
## 4       10.6           12.9 ES       2020 YES      
## 5       27.5           26.5 UI       2021 NO       
## 6        9.75          16.1 ES       2021 YES

Maps & Baselines

Median household income

  • Low: <60% of state median income
  • Moderate: 60-80% of state median income
  • High: >80% state median income

Must exceed baseline to be considered equitable. Baseline is proportional investment based on portion of census tracts that fall under each category.

## Getting data from the 2016-2020 5-year ACS
## Downloading feature geometry from the Census website.  To cache shapefiles for use in future sessions, set `options(tigris_use_cache = TRUE)`.

## Warning: Removed 13 rows containing non-finite values (stat_bin).

## Joining, by = "Census Tract"
## Joining, by = c("Year", "cat", "Utility")

Racial diversity

## Warning: Removed 7 rows containing non-finite values (stat_bin).

## Warning: Removed 7 rows containing non-finite values (stat_count).

## Joining, by = "Census Tract"
## Joining, by = c("Year", "Utility")

Energy burden

Disbursements & Collections